Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Are you asking for ways to gain and retain customers?

For my money there is a big need for trust in this market, its becoming big in the UK, and only trusted businesses will win.

Our biggest business is https://www.homeserve.com

Anyway here are some cost effective marketing tips:

Public Relations - Get some good PR and testimonials for yourself, and get them to relevant industry publications and send them direct to potential clients.

Online - Get a website, get it well optimised for search engines, and great usability. Get yourself listed in Directories.

Email - Get a good prospect list and start to work it, emails are costs effective, but difficult to get a good 'call to action' (i.e. they should call you) from them.

Cold Call - Dumb name, it's never really cold! Go through your list of prospects and call them. NOt a hard sell, be focused on what you want to achieve (face to face visit!). Get into your prospects mind, what do they want? Make the emotional connection.

Direct Mail - Some DM can be VERY cost effective, find an agency that will do some great creatives and low cost print.

Local Press - Can be cost effective, but you need to do your research and understand your market well. Basically segment your market (geography and propensity to spend etc) and ensure the local paper circulation closely matches your market. Simple stuff but everyone forgets it and wastes loads of money!

Presentation - Once you get the prospect interested, make sure you have a good sales presentation to really promote yourself. I cannot stress enough that this MUST BE a GREAT presentation, break the mould and think about the structure of your presentation differently.

If you need any offline help on any of this, in particular the online stuff or the presentation then get in touch.

The best of luck.

Andrew
black and white marketing